This Google tool lets you remove your personal info from search results — here's how
Eliminate your personal info from Google Search results
During the Google I/O 2022 conference in May 2022, the search giant unveiled a new tool that lets people remove their personal info from Google search results. This includes their phone number, email address, or physical address.
It first debuted as a request form, but it's also available in the Google App which integrates it directly into a menu in the search results, rather than forcing you to go to another page to fill out a form.
Here's a look at how it works.
How to remove your personal info from Google Search
Anytime you see personally-identifiable information about yourself in a search result you're able to remove it in a few taps. Just tap on the three dots next to the Google Search result and then in the prompt you select whether it is a phone number, physical, or email address.
That's all there is to it. Google will then evaluate the content on the page that is serving your personal information to determine that it is not "limiting the availability of other information that is broadly useful" and if appropriate, block the search result in question.
As with the existing request system, this does not remove that information from the website that is hosting the content, it merely eliminates it from Google's search results. Eliminating the content entirely would involve contacting the website directly and Google has a support page to help you with that.
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Sean Riley has been covering tech professionally for over a decade now. Most of that time was as a freelancer covering varied topics including phones, wearables, tablets, smart home devices, laptops, AR, VR, mobile payments, fintech, and more. Sean is the resident mobile expert at Laptop Mag, specializing in phones and wearables, you'll find plenty of news, reviews, how-to, and opinion pieces on these subjects from him here. But Laptop Mag has also proven a perfect fit for that broad range of interests with reviews and news on the latest laptops, VR games, and computer accessories along with coverage on everything from NFTs to cybersecurity and more.